Children of the Road

February 5, 2008 11:38 AM

Novel research Filter: What were immigration requirements for kids in 1970's.

Could a child under a certain age travel without a passport or birth certificate in the 1970's? I remember crossing the Mexican Border and only being asked my country of origin. Did young children need tourist visas?

I remember a far more relaxed attitude towards travel at least toward children. BTW, the children in this book are the children of hippie parents and would therefore be subject to more scrutiny. How much scrutiny might they receive in terms of documentation?

posted by Xurando to travel & transportation (3 comments total)

Some libraries have government publication archives, and they would probably have State Department brochures on these requirements. I am not certain of where you live, but most counties have at least one of these repositories.
posted by parmanparman at 1:01 PM on February 5

I guess that you are asking about the USA, in which case I don't know. For Hungary, I know that in the late 70s and early 80s, if you did manage to get a passport and your children were traveling with you, pictures of the kids would go into a parent's passport, along with the name and age of the children. My mother's first passport from that time period has a picture a blurry picture of me as a toddler, crying piteously, and another picture of my infant sister being held by my mother, as our respective passport pictures. So at least for Eastern Bloc countries, which obviously had a much tighter rein on border crossings than the US, kids also needed documentation in the 1970s.
posted by that possible maker of pork sausages at 1:51 PM on February 5

I needed a passport and visas when I was 2 months old (in 1974). Then again, we were moving temporarily to Saudi Arabia, which has never had lax entry requirements. I know my passport was also needed for the traveling we did around Europe when I was 2, so I think if your characters are going anywhere that's only accessible by plane you'd have a hard time making it seem realistic for them not to have a passport. If they're driving through Mexico and down into South America, though, I don't know.
posted by MsMolly at 4:01 PM on February 5